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Wednesday, August 6, 2014

US officials say someone else is leaking documents in the wake of Snowden

The federal government has concluded there's a new leaker exposing
national security documents in the aftermath of surveillance disclosures
by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, U.S. officials tell.

Proof of the newest leak
comes from national security documents that formed the basis of a news
story published Tuesday by the Intercept, the news site launched by
Glenn Greenwald, who also published Snowden's leaks.

The Intercept article
focuses on the growth in U.S. government databases of known or suspected
terrorist names during the Obama administration.

The article cites
documents prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center dated August
2013, which is after Snowden left the United States to avoid criminal
charges.

Greenwald has suggested
there was another leaker. In July, he said on Twitter "it seems clear at
this point" that there was another.

Government officials have been investigating to find out that identity.

In a February interview
with CNN's Reliable Sources, Greenwald said: "I definitely think it's
fair to say that there are people who have been inspired by Edward
Snowden's courage and by the great good and virtue that it has
achieved."

He added, "I have no
doubt there will be other sources inside the government who see extreme
wrongdoing who are inspired by Edward Snowden."

It's not yet clear how many documents the new leaker has shared and how much damage it may cause.

So far, the documents
shared by the new leaker are labeled "Secret" and "NOFORN," which means
it isn't to be shared with foreign government.

That's a lower level of classification than most of the documents leaked by Snowden.

Government officials say
he stole 1.7 million classified documents, many of which were labeled
"Top Secret," a higher classification for the government's most
important secrets.